Tag: racist

I bet you’re here because you saw the word racist and rapey in the title, and just HAD to click the link because apparently we are a nation obsessed by being offended by everything.

That would be including (but not limited to) instances where putting the French flag atop the Seattle Space Needle instead of the Kenyan flag was questioned as racist, and this ad for Bloomingdale’s was taken down for promoting a “rape culture”

Seriously? Give me a fucking break… on both accounts.

The French flag flying atop the Space Needle is a show of solidarity for the terrorist attacks on France, who is our ally, who gave us the Statue of Liberty, and who also helped us win wars hundreds of years ago which is one of the reasons we are free country today… well, a free country that is being watched, recorded, and listened to by the government through all of our computers and cell phone devices but oddly enough, I’m ok with that.

They’re not looking for me….unless of course I do something so “racist” according to this article by putting the French flag on top of the most famous building in the Pacific Northwest, instead of Kenya’s flag in honor of the hundreds that were killed in THAT country back in April.

It was a bad week for the world I get it, but let’s be honest…there is NOTHING racist about that. I’m almost offended that someone would be offended by that and call it something it’s clearly not. Both events were a tragedy, but I think people are getting a little too casual with throwing the word racism out there just for the clicks.

Click this link to find out that nothing in the headline is actually true, because clicks are the new form of currency in the world.

What if the owner of the Space Needle is French and not Kenyan? What if there is only one flag pole on top of the observation tower? I wonder if the writer of that article would even know what Kenya’s flag looks like. I mean, where would one go to get a Kenyan flag anyway? 7-11? Home Depot? Is there a Kenya town in Seattle next to China town?

If I’m the United States, and I’m back in high school and I see one of my best friends get beat up one day by a bully, I’m gonna have their backs the next day because they had mine at one point 300 plus years ago. Then, I’ll show the rest of the world my respect for them by flying their flag atop my privately owned landmark. This is of course in a fantasy world where apparently I own property, and all of my friends have personal emblems, but what I’m saying is The United States is best friends with France, and just acquaintances with Kenya. Doesn’t mean one tragedy is worse than the other, and it’s NOT racist.

Show me the people in Kenya getting offended by the French flag and maybe I’ll believe you, but in the meantime we can’t put every countries flag up every time there is a disaster. And by the way, killing and/or treating people unfairly because of the color of their skin is racist, not putting up a flag of one country as opposed to another country just because you make the point that white people live there.

Now on to this ad.

I laughed the first time I saw it because I got the joke, but at the same time I was definitely NOT surprised to find this was attached to a post questioning whether or not this ad suggests a “rape culture” insinuating that the guy roofied the eggnog.

Wow, pretty rapey huh? Another word that just gets thrown around like a trending topic on Twitter these days. Let’s analyze this…

The guy in the ad IS kind of creepy looking like he just did something wrong, and the girl is having a good time right? So of course I can see how some sick and twisted people would take this to the dark part of the brain that suggests he is definitely going to rape her later.

That’s fucked up, but people seem to love being offended by things instead of seeing them in different ways. Here are some other scenarios to consider.

What if the guy is the ad is gay? What if he’s looking at his best friend who is talking to another guy at the party that got cut out of the final billboard? What if he’s looking past her, and staring at some dude hoping to have sex with HIM later. Would that still be considered rapey?

Consider this… what if SHE spiked HIS drink? Now she’s laughing about it and the dude in the ad is like, what a crazy bitch that woman is. What if the roles were reversed, and by the way, don’t call me racist or rapey because a good friend of mine is the one who suggested this scenario and guess what, she is a woman!

Finally, how does one serve eggnog at a Christmas party anyway? Isn’t it always in one giant bowl with a ladle and a lots of reindeer shaped cups like Uncle Eddie had in the movie Christmas Vacation? If so, then whomever spiked the egg nog just roofied EVERYONE at that party and it doesn’t matter cause they will all pass out soon with no one to force sex onto them, except of course for the people who didn’t drink the eggnog.

It all depends on how you choose to look at it, but let’s try to remember that even though we don’t like something we may see or read, being offended is a choice, not an instinct.

I choose to feel like the owner of the space needle did something to show his or her support for France, a country that helped us during 9-11 and prayed for Kenya, who we all share a deep remorse with.

I choose to feel the billboard was humorous and festive and also I choose to think that if you put two people dressed like it was 1950 in that Bloomingdale’s ad with the same text, no one would think there was anything wrong with that.

Being offended is a sign of the times, I understand that, but going around labeling things racist and rapey just to get people to click your link or jump on your team to argue over some silly point is just childish.

I think we’d be a better country if we stopped trying so hard to be offended, and tried a little harder at understanding each other.